Category Archives: Dave

reunited

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Dave got home yesterday. I picked him up at the airport in the afternoon, and we headed over to daycare to surprise Catie. She knew he was coming home that day, but she thought that it was in the evening, and that I was going to pick her up from daycare and take her to the airport with me.

We pulled up at daycare, and Catie saw me and was happy, but then she saw Dave, and it was the biggest “DAAADDDDYYYY!!!” reaction you’ve ever seen. Like, a full-on running tackle hug.

And of course, I tried to get a video of it with my phone, but it didn’t work, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. It was awesome. She’s been pretty much glued to his side ever since.

So, yeah. We’re all home now. It’s really nice.

She dressed herself. Clearly.
(No reason for this picture at all, it just makes me laugh.)

Baby 2.0, 30-week update

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I had back-to-back doctor’s appointments yesterday. First with my regular OB’s office, then with the special high-risk ultrasound center that I get to use because of that big ol’ Advanced Maternal Age flag on my chart.

So, first up: the obstetrician. Baby 2.0’s heartbeat is good, my weight is on track (I’m up 14 pounds at 30 weeks, no complaints there), and my stomach is measuring on target. That’s all the physical stuff.

The emotional stuff? I told my OB about all of my anxiety problems I’ve been having lately, and how it was really very sweet of them to call in xanax for me last week, and I do appreciate it (I probably enjoy the way that xanax makes me feel a little too much, considering that it’s highly addictive), but I also need to be realistic: I can’t take xanax all the time. I need to be able to drive, do my job, and take care of my kid. And I can’t do any of those things if I’m all loopy on sedatives. So I really need something that won’t turn me into a zombie, and that’ll help me keep my anxiety in check at the same time.

They gave me a prescription for Lexapro, and I took the first one last night. I feel horrible and groggy today, but that could be because I had to get up at 6 a.m. to drive my mom to the airport, and we stayed up late to watch “Dancing with the Stars.” So, I can’t blame it entirely on the meds, is what I’m saying. I’ll have to wait and see how I feel after a couple of weeks.

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After my OB visit, I went home to pick up my mom, and we went to the ultrasound center, so she could see her second grandbaby live and in person.

Baby 2.0 at 30 weeks

Baby 2.0 (who, yes, is definitely still a she) was not very agreeable about letting us get a good picture, and this was about the best one we could get. You can sort of see part of her profile and a little hand at the top. I think she was throwing an elbow to get that ultrasound wand off of her “house.”

She’s a little on the small side, measuring in the 30th percentile. But Catie was somewhere in the 10th percentile when she was born, and God knows she made up for it later, so I’m not worried. I’m honestly relieved to know that I likely won’t be giving birth to a ten-pounder. An average-sized healthy baby is ideal, as far as I’m concerned.

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My mom flew home this morning, and Catie and I are both sad about it. For the sake of logistics, I had to drop Catie off at daycare before taking my mom to the airport (the airport is about 4 miles from my office, daycare is 12 miles), so they had to say good-bye at daycare. We were afraid there would be tears, but my mom had “going-away toys” for Catie this morning. Tiny little things she got at Rite-Aid for a couple of bucks, nothing major, but enough to make it ok that Mimi was leaving. That plus a lot of kisses, and promises that Mimi would be back soon (well, in a couple of months, anyway), and Catie seemed ok when we left.

Of course, I’m fully expecting her to have a meltdown later. She’s also been crying a lot about missing Daddy lately, poor kid. The last couple of weeks have been rough on both of us.

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In related news: Dave will be back one week from today. I can’t wait.

The solo parenting gig, thus far

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Dave left for England on Tuesday night, which means I’ve been doing the solo-parent thing for the past three days. So far, it’s going ok. Catie and I kind of have our weektime routine down: we get up, she goes to daycare and I go to work, we come home, have dinner, and do the whole bedtime routine. It’s been pretty easy to just coast on auto-pilot, honestly.

I told her I'd turn on cartoons if she smiled.
“I’m just taking it easy on her for now. Next week I unleash hell.”

A few things I’ve noticed, though:
1. I don’t sleep well when I’m the only adult in the house. Now, look, I didn’t meet Dave until I was 28 years old, so it’s not like I’d never lived alone before. But I was always in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. In our current house, I lie in bed and think things like, “Hmm, if someone broke in through the garage door, would I even hear it upstairs?” And I worry about things like what would I do if a fire broke out, things like that. Not exactly conducive to a good night’s sleep, obviously.

Oh, and related: I get very jumpy about unexplained noises in the middle of the night. Which is why I’m just about ready to throw Beaumont outside for good. Seriously, cat, it’s 2 a.m. Do you have to jump up on the kitchen counter and knock over a whole bunch of stuff now? (To be fair, he is totally thrown off by Dave’s absence. The past two nights, he’s been asleep in the hall when I got up in the morning. It’s like he’s trying to keep an eye on both Catie’s room and mine at the same time. “We lost one human, gotta keep a watch on the last two!”)

2. While the routine itself is pretty manageable, I forget how much Dave does in the evenings to help out. Because I’ve noticed that by the end of the day, my body just aches. I know it’s pregnancy-related (since it’s mostly my lower back and hips that hurt), but it’s like I hadn’t taken into account how little “sitting on my butt” time I would get while Dave was gone. I miss my sitting-down time. A lot.

3. I’m really lazy about meals when I’m the only one who eats “grown-up food.” Last night we had mac & cheese with a side of broccoli. Not exactly health food, but whatever, it was easy. (And I love that Catie will eat broccoli.) (Although we did have cupcakes for dessert. You can’t be good all the time.)

4. Trying to wash a four year-old’s hair in the bathtub when you’re 7 months pregnant. I have nothing else to add to that, except: good GOD. And, ouch.

7 months. Holy Moses.
This is not a shape that is meant leaning over the side of a bathtub.

5. As for housework: I give up. I’ve called in the housekeepers. I can’t do it all by myself, so I’m just going to throw some money at the problem and stop worrying about it.

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My brother is on his way here from Charlotte to hang out with us this weekend, and Catie and I are both really excited. My brother is a great guy and Catie adores him, so it should be fun to have him around. No big weekend plans, just hanging out and enjoying some nice springtime weather. Should be fun.

Hope y’all have a nice weekend too, wherever you are.

on the plus side, at least I'm not crazy

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Last night, I woke up sometime around 1 a.m., and our power was out. That struck me as weird, since we weren’t having any bad weather or anything like that.

Then I noticed strobe lights reflecting all over our bedroom. I wondered if I was still dreaming? Or maybe I was hallucinating? Is this a common pregnancy symptom that I somehow missed? Was I about to be abducted by aliens? WHAT was going on?

I got out of bed and stumbled over to the window. At first it looked like a police car’s blue lights were inside my neighbor’s house. That made no sense, so I rubbed my eyes and looked again, and realized that I was looking at a reflection in their windows. I looked to the right, to our nearest intersection (we live in the second house in our subdivision, so the intersection is close) and I saw police cars, fire trucks, and rescue vehicles all over the street.

Of course, because pregnant ladies are known for being completely sane and rational, my first thought was, “hey, what if it’s that urban myth about the axe murderer who knocks out the power to the whole street before he goes on a killing spree? And maybe the cops are here to catch him? Should I go downstairs and make sure that all of our doors are locked? Or wake up Dave and send him outside to investigate?”

Then I decided that was the Unisom talking and I needed to go back to bed.

I woke up again around 3-something, because that’s the hour Baby 2.0 has designated as her In Utero Dance Party (seriously, EVERY. NIGHT.), and our power was back on, but the cop cars were still outside. Weird.

I asked Dave this morning if he had noticed all that, and he said that he heard a loud bang and assumed that a transformer blew. He didn’t notice anything with the police cars and lights because he was asleep.

I checked the news this morning and found out that apparently some drunk idiot hit a utility pole. Based on the pictures of that truck, I can’t believe that his injuries were “non-life threatening.” Crazy.

And I have to say, it is really weird to see your street on the map of a local news story.

But hey, at least I’m not hallucinating, so there’s that.

spring-esque weekend

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We had a freakishly nice weather weekend that felt more like springtime than February (highs in the 70s! W00t!), so we decided to make the most of it.

I left work a little early on Friday so I could take Catie to the playground after I picked her up. We had a blast.

Climbing

Catie on the swing

On Saturday, all three of us headed out to a local park and had a picnic lunch. (Note: I don’t pack picnics. We stopped at Subway and picked up some sandwiches there, and took our food and drinks with us from there. This is the Slacker’s Approach to Picnicking 101. You’re welcome.)

There was a big lake at the park with a small beach area, so we sat on a blanket and relaxed. Dave and I got some nice time to talk, and we laughed ourselves silly watching Catie chase after the geese. I don’t know why she thought charging toward the geese and yelling, “Come here, boy!” would make the geese actually come to her, but she seemed genuinely surprised when they flapped away.

After that, we did another playground trip, which was ridiculously packed, and I realized that we really need to work on the whole “don’t talk to strangers” thing with Catie because she will literally talk to any adult that crosses her path. I’m not exactly sure how to teach her about that without scaring her, though, so if anyone has any ideas, feel free to pitch them my way.

Yesterday, I went on a crazy nesting frenzy and cleaned out a whole bunch of stuff to take to Goodwill. One of our old neighbors called and asked if Catie could come play, so I dropped her off there and ran some errands (including the Goodwill drop-off) by myself. It was really nice to do all that stuff on my own.

Today, Catie is at daycare, and we have the day off. I had an OB appointment this morning (everything’s fine in Baby 2.0-ville) and now Dave and I are planning to just drive around aimlessly and enjoy the sunshine. Sounds nice to me.

excuse me while I whine

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You know what’s really, really no fun at all? Being sick when you’re pregnant.

The totally unfair part is that I was already sick back in December, and it took two rounds of antibiotics and a course of Prednisone to kill it off. I’m supposed to be done now, right? Isn’t my body supposed to ease up on my poor little gestating self?

Yeah, no, apparently not. So I’m miserable. I spent all day Saturday in bed, watching really awful movies on cable. Catie hung out with me in bed and played with Dave’s iPad so I wouldn’t be lonely.

Playing with Daddy's iPad

It was nice to have the company.

Yesterday, I was feeling slightly better, so I went to Target and folded some laundry – nothing super-exhausting, but you know, STUFF. Some basic life tasks that needed to be done. To give me some kid-free relaxation time, Dave took Catie to the park for a few hours and they had a great time (or at least, they did until some stupid thug tween boys hit her in the head with a basketball and I swear if I’d been there I probably would’ve lost it).

And then, even though I had been feeling better, I coughed all last night and woke up worse than ever. I have no voice left, it hurts to talk. And I’m trying to keep myself in that delicate zone of “medicated just enough to be pregnancy-safe, but also enough that I don’t cough constantly and annoy my co-workers.” It’s a tough balancing act, let me tell you.

I’m so ready for winter to be over. I’m also ready to not be pregnant anymore so I can enjoy some damn DayQuil again.

/end whinypants-ness

a little Monday whining

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I feel really “off” lately. I can’t quite put my finger on it, it’s not quite a full-blown depression or anything that severe, but there are a lot of small things that are adding up to make me feel like I’m not myself. Like:

1. I’ve hit the point of pregnancy where I can no longer sleep comfortably for long periods (examples: I have to pee, the baby is kicking, my hip hurts, whatever), so I’m really freaking exhausted all the time.

2. Pregnancy hormones are making me a weepy and grouchy mess, which I hate. I spend way too much time either completely irritable, or on the verge of tears. I like to be in control of my feelings, so I’m not a fan of this.

3. Related to the hormone mess: I feel puffy and fat, and even my skin feels stretched tight, like it doesn’t know what to do with these changes. I don’t feel like a glowing pregnant Earth Mother type. I feel ugly, and I feel dry and itchy all over. I don’t feel like I “own” my body, if that makes sense. It’s like my body has been hijacked by some mysterious creature and I just have to put up with it for several more months while things get progressively more miserable.

4. I miss Dave. We live together and work at the same company, but it feels like we don’t see other very much. Weird, right? Well, case in point: he had a massive deadline that was due today, so he worked all weekend. And I mean, like, he worked: he drank coffee and didn’t sleep for 2 days. (He took a two-hour nap on Sunday afternoon. That was the only sleep he had between Saturday morning and Monday morning.) I know it was stuff that he needed to finish, but it makes me worry about his health when he pulls all-nighters like that. We basically barely spoke to each other all weekend because I wanted to leave him alone to get his work done, and I spent a lot of time corralling Catie to keep her quiet so she wouldn’t disturb him either. It sucked.

5. The anxiety of “holy crap, this 2nd baby is really on her way, and how on earth am I going to juggle two kids and a full-time job?” is starting to sink in. Plus all of the stereotypical stuff that goes with that – the fear that I’ll be “less” of a mom to Catie once the baby is here, that I’ve maxed out my capacity for love and won’t bond with this new baby, etc. Stupid stuff that I know – I KNOW – isn’t true. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying about it now.

I had an OB appointment this morning, and I talked about a lot of this stuff with my doctor. I told him that I think that the majority of my issues are environmental and not physiological. I’m pretty sure most of it can be filed under, “This too shall pass.” He said that it’s good that I’m aware of it and talking about it, and he wants me to let him know if it starts to feel like something we need to address more seriously.

I don’t want anybody reading this to worry about me. I’ll be ok, and if it feels like things aren’t getting better, then I absolutely will discuss it with my doctor and take it from there. I’m not naive, and I know enough about depression to know when to ask for help.

Today, though, I just needed to vent. Thanks for listening.